


overwhelmingly you

by stylinsoncity



Series: oxford au [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Academia, Light Angst, Literature, Love Letters, M/M, New York, Oxford, Poetry, Professor Louis, Sequel, Smut, Writer Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylinsoncity/pseuds/stylinsoncity
Summary: more reflections post-oxford.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: oxford au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779460
Comments: 107
Kudos: 389





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i debated posting this given the very important racial justice movement happening across the world. as a black author, it's always been a particular source of joy to write fic. during the past few weeks, one of the ONLY ways I could find joy was by forcing myself to pause and write. also by reading the feedback i've received from you all. i'm not always able to reply, but i want everyone to know i read every comment i receive. i read bookmarks too. i read your messages on tumblr, etc. i appreciate the love and support wherever you show it, and it really is impossible to fully express how much.
> 
> and i'm grateful if you take another moment with me and the professor in the midst of us all bettering the world.
> 
> what follows below might be absurdly fluffy, but I think we could all use some fluffiness right now.
> 
> [learn more about the Black Lives Matter movement and how you can help here.](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/)
> 
>   
> happy pride!! & much love! xx

At first, Louis suggests coffee at the hotel’s cafe.

He barely drank his cup earlier, and holding Harry’s hand, he gets a jolt of energy that reminds him how tired he’s been and how poorly he’s slept over the last week. Perhaps over the last year. He knows exhaustion is hovering on the eaves of his consciousness — for him and Harry both — and he won’t be getting that nap on the flight after all. He wants to be as fully awake as possible for whatever comes next too. So yes, coffee seems like a good first step.

He cancels his car, then sends an urgent message to Margo asking her to reschedule his flight. At no point does he release Harry’s hand. He feels him looking at him, though, and waiting patiently until Louis shoves his phone into his pocket and says, “It’s this way.”

At the cafe, they sit in two armchairs by a window, separated by a low coffee table. The menu is overdone. Too many latte options. Too many milk options. He isn’t hungry, but the food selections are copious and interesting and distracting. Everything is too much all of a sudden — chatter and music and the typical coffee shop smells — and not enough of it is Harry. Not Harry’s chatter or Harry’s music or Harry’s smell. Or the touch of him. Louis misses the feel of their clasped hands.

He peeks at Harry over the menu, and Harry peeks back.

“I think this was a mistake,” Louis announces.

The color doesn’t literally drain from Harry’s face, but just about. He goes very still. 

“I mean, having coffee here,” Louis clarifies, quickly. “Sorry.”

“Right,” Harry says. He nibbles the corner of his lip. “Do you want to leave? My roommate’s at work.”

Louis would like that very much. He wonders if he should check back into the hotel. Taking his things with him seems presumptuous. And then Harry reaches for Louis’ holdall. “I’ve got this,” he says, slinging it over his shoulder. They take hands once more.

  
  


It goes without saying that he’s not used to any of this. He’s not used to holding hands with a person for an entire car ride. Absolutely not accustomed to the unflagging desire to do so. He feels codependent in a way that’s probably normal for most people, but not for him.

He’s never placed his heart so resolutely in someone else’s hands.

Louis is realistic, if nothing else. And realistically, he needs to be here right now and he needs to see this through. As unfamiliar and overwhelming as it is, he knows he’ll come out on the other side of it in better shape. The rest — even his anxieties and his reservations — will sort itself out.

Nonetheless, he’s tense, watching Harry drift around the kitchen, making coffee. He keeps waiting for him to change his mind. To stop suddenly and ask Louis to leave. But judging from Harry’s reaction earlier, that trepidation is mutual. They’re both concerned with the security of this new, precarious thing, tiny, uncertain heartbeat that it has.

A grey cat slinks into the kitchen and runs her body across Harry’s ankles, which he hardly notices and doesn’t mind. “When did you bring Mosely over?” Louis asks.

“Last summer,” Harry says. “She was living with my sister till then. How’s Alfred?”

“He’s good. He’s with my mum, actually,” Louis says with a little shrug of his brows. He doesn’t understand how that happened or how the relationship with his mother has evolved at all.

Her will is preternaturally strong, and at some point after Louis gave her ring back to her, she set her will to mending things between them. At least, that’s what Louis thinks she’s doing. Before leaving for his tour, he saw her constantly. He didn’t always want to, but she would show up for dinner or she’d show up with drapes for his living room or she’d ask him for book recommendations. She would actually read those books and then send emails with her thoughts.

It was odd, but when she insisted on looking after the cat, Louis realised she was the only person he would have felt comfortable asking.

“I’ll have to get him over here eventually,” Louis says to Harry.

“I was starting to think I dreamt that bit up. About you staying.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Obviously.”

“Then I’m staying,” Louis says, picking at the lining of his pocket. “But I get it. It’s all a little surreal.”

Harry shuts the kettle off. “I’ve always been a sure thing, Louis. Very sure and very real.”

“It didn’t feel that way when I was in London. You disappeared. No way of contacting you here… I asked your mum for your new number and she said no.”

“It killed her to do that,” Harry says.

“Seemed that way, yeah,” Louis says. Harry’s mum, at least, has always had more faith in him than he deserved. “The point is you said goodbye and you meant it. At least back then you did.”

“I did, yeah.” Harry crosses his arms. “I did try shutting you out, but only because I suspected it’d be this easy for you. All you had to do was tell me the truth and I’d be right back to square one. Or whichever square we left off at. You shut me out first, Louis.”

Louis tries not to look away when he says, “That’s true.”

“If we’d seen each other earlier that summer… If I thought you wanted to see me, maybe I wouldn’t have left at all,” Harry muses.

“I’m glad you did. You seem different here. Still you, but with ten toes down,” Louis says. “I don’t want to go impeding the progress you’ve made as an idealised individual.”

“Shut up, Louis,” Harry says.

Louis smiles.

“I was up the whole night thinking about what you said,” Harry says. “Trying not to think about you and then, reading your book because it wasn’t working. And as much as I’ve changed, my heart hasn’t at all. The things I think about. The things I dream about. It’s... overwhelmingly you.”

Mosely saunters up to Louis’ ankles and he stoops, giving her head a scratch, wondering if she remembers him at all. Harry smiles watching them both. “What have I done to deserve him?” Louis asks her before peering up at Harry. He stands. “She says 'nothing'.”

“That’s not true.”

“Well, I haven’t been a saint.”

Harry scoffs, reaching into the cupboard for mugs. “I know that.”

“Alright, I just don’t want you to look up one day and realise I’m not exactly what you signed up for.”

Harry pauses and looks at Louis with sudden severity. “So, the first thing is you can’t do that. You can’t compare me to her,” he says.

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

It’s quiet and tense for a moment as Harry presses down on the plunger of his French press. “I know who you are,” he says finally. “I want you exactly as you are. And everything I don’t know, I’m fine to learn. I want that too.”

Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry.” He wishes he hadn’t said it, but it was true. And he’s trying to be better about speaking the whole truth.

“You can’t be sorry either,” Harry says, resolutely. “I think we shouldn’t apologise to each other for the next month.”

Louis’ brows wrinkle. He lets a bit of laughter loose. “Alright then.”

The way Harry looks at him is almost too tender. It’s the thing he shied away from years ago. He never knew what to do with it. He felt like Harry had done excavation on him, was looking directly at his heart, at all its machinery and mechanisms. He resists the urge to shy away now too because the urge to be closer is greater. And when he is closer, there’s the urge to kiss him.

Harry sets his warm palms on Louis’ face. Louis slides both arms around Harry’s middle. At the first touch of Louis’ tongue, Harry pushes his hands into Louis’ hair and then they drift towards the counter’s edge, colliding with it, needing something to lean into.

It’s a bit like the first time in Barbados, the way they were hurried in their consumption of one another, perhaps in fear that time would run out or their senses would return. It’s different now because they have time. He kisses Harry desperately, but he also pauses just to hold him. Harry is quick to rid Louis of his shirt, but there’s a moment where he simply rests his head on Louis’ bare shoulder, then kisses his shoulder, kisses his neck, his earlobe.

He tucks his fingers inside the waistband of Louis’ joggers and pushes them down, smiling when he sees Louis isn’t wearing pants. “Convenient,” he says.

Louis laughs. “Not having that coffee after all, are we?”

“Do you want the coffee,” Harry asks, running his thumb over the head of Louis’ cock, “or do you want me?”

“Always you,” Louis says.

After another kiss, Harry sinks to his knees. “Missed this,” he says, kissing Louis’ bare thigh and his stomach.

When Louis sinks into his mouth, he has the same thought. But when he tries to voice it, it’s a gasp. 

  
  


Contentment is so foreign to Louis, and yet he takes to it easily. He supposes that’s only human. He sees himself exactly like this in a month, in a year, in a decade from now — sprawled out in bed with Harry’s hair in his face and his sweat-damp body against his own.

“Really missed this,” Harry says quietly.

It’s begun to rain. A nonsensical shower because there are hardly any clouds and no visible source of precipitation. It’s quiet and cool in the room. Louis twines one of Harry’s curls gently around his pointer finger. “Me too,” he says.

“It’s not like this with anyone else.”

Louis thinks back to previous lovers, but he knows without doing so that the same is true for him. It hasn’t been like this with anyone. It’s never felt this acute and this immeasurable at the same time. Maybe it’s because he loves him. But it felt like this in Barbados too, leaving Louis to wonder if he loved him even then. If somehow he’s always loved him. Or at least, has always been on the precipice of loving him. “Definitely not,” Louis says.

Harry untangles himself so that he can see Louis’ face. “I remember the first time you said you hadn’t done it in a while,” he says. “And then you proceeded to do it better than anyone I’ve been with.”

Smug as ever and not attempting to hide it, Louis tucks his arms beneath his head and smiles. “I was inspired.”

“Oh, I inspire you?”

“In more ways than one, yeah. But you knew that already.”

Harry’s smile is also smug. Because he did. He sits upright. “I want to know more about what you were like when you lived here. Your favorite places and all that.”

“I can just show you.”

“I’d like that,” he says, drawing his knee up to his chest, setting his chin atop it. “Where did you take your dates?”

Louis shrugs. “I didn’t really have dates.”

“But you had a boyfriend at some point.”

“No, actually,” Louis says. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

Harry is stunned. “What about Daniel?”

“We never referred to each other that way. That’s not how it was back then. My friends and I were all wannabe beatniks. All about art and literature and freedom, but not about commitment, I guess. Daniel and I were close, but he was close with a lot of people, so none of it mattered.”

Not to say those relationships and friendships he formed back then weren’t meaningful. He still thinks of people from that part of his life — mainly Ramsey and Erin. For all their aversion to commitment, those two have been together for two decades now, last he checked.

“But there were places we all liked to go,” Louis says. “Mostly around West 4th. There’s a piano bar called Marie’s Crisis I liked going to.”

“Oh, I’ve been there.”

Louis peeks at him. “With Cameron?” he asks, nonchalantly.

“No,” Harry says. “Just friends from work.”

Louis is pathetically relieved. “Between the two of us, you’re the relationship expert here. You’re much more likely to know where the date spots are.”

“Definitely not a relationship expert, but I’ve been on a few dates in New York,” Harry admits. “I’ve had five boyfriends in my lifetime, but the stakes were different. Or they were nonexistent. I didn’t love any of them.”

“Why not?”

Harry shrugs. “Couldn’t say.”

“Why me, then?”

“I don’t know that either. I’ve thought about it myself. I just know I always liked you. I wanted to know more about you from the moment we met. From the moment I read your books or watched your lectures. And whenever I learned something new, it felt like information I’d been desperately missing. Like your favourite food or the last film you liked. I think I was already somewhat in love with what I’d seen so far. The fantasy of you, I guess. And each little bit I learned just gave it substance.”

“I feel like you learned all the bad parts, though.”

“There are no bad parts,” Harry says. “I’m not sure they’re necessarily good either. They’re just you and I love them.”

Louis gets that feeling again like he’s been holding in a breath unbeknownst to himself and he’s compelled to exhale. That big weight falling away from him. He wonders if that’ll ever stop. He hopes it doesn’t. He wonder if he’ll get used to it. He prays not.

Harry lies beside him again, getting close. For a while it’s quiet, and it’s obviously not the first time Louis realises it, but he’s so tired. Post-marathon torpor. Every part of him is exhausted in the sweetest way. His mind, of course. His heart from all the longing. His thighs from all the fucking. He wants to sleep for long, languorous hours with the assuredness that when he wakes, he’ll wake happy and he’ll wake in the arms of someone he loves.

“I want to take care of you,” Harry says. “And make you happy.”

Louis opens his eyes. He doesn’t remember when he closed them, but it’s suddenly difficult not to. “I can make you happy too.”

Harry runs his fingers through Louis’ hair. It’s the last thing he remembers feeling before he falls asleep. “I know.”

  
  


Louis opens his duffle in Toronto to find an envelope with an H in the centre, one from Harry’s stationery set. 

_Lou,_

_I woke up missing you even though you’re right beside me. It’s 5:00. I can’t get back to sleep and I can’t wake you to talk either because you have your flight in a few hours… But here’s what I would’ve said if I did._

_I had a dream in which there were two roads ahead of me. Literally a scene out of Robert Frost’s head. And obviously, I took the road that ended up leading me to you. In my dream, it was warped. Sometimes as I walked forward, I ended up further away. Sometimes I ended up somewhere else entirely, like in my primary school or the Japanese place we liked in Oxford. There were always obstacles to dodge and it felt like it went on forever. But I don’t remember the road ever ending. Suddenly you were just there, sitting on the couch across from me._

_It’s like the universe that shaped my dream just gave up. It realised it was no match for us. It realised I would choose you and find a way to you every time. We’ll always find each other._

_That’s how I interpreted it, at least._

_I think if love could be easily explained, it wouldn’t be as coveted. So I still can’t explain why I feel the way I do. But I think you should know how clever and how strong you are. You should know what your laughter does to a room. You should know I feel complete joy whenever you’re around._

_And I’m preemptively counting the hours until we’re together and undisturbed again. Preferably without clothes and you can do that thing you like doing with your beautiful mouth between my legs._

_Love you always._

_H_

  
  


The times he spent with Ray and Daniel were about the same, Louis realises. Saturated with a novel splendor. Before Ray, no boy had been so close to the true him. And before Daniel, no boy was ever that close while sleeping with Louis on a consistent basis. In retrospect, he can see why someone would assume Daniel might have been considered his first boyfriend and Ray, his first love.

But there was so much they didn’t know about him, so much he didn’t know about them, and never attempted to reveal. With both, he was relatively complacent. 

Harry is the antithesis to complacency. A juggernaut, so resolute and resourceful, in his endeavor to get right at Louis’ heart. And though he claims he wasn’t like this with his ex-boyfriends, he’s not afraid to let Louis in either. The doors of his heart are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It’s probably better to say Harry, who thrives on romance, _needs_ Louis to show up at those doors consistently.

On Louis’ first morning in Cleveland, he wakes to a text from Harry that says, ‘ **I miss you.** ’

‘ **_Miss you too,_ **’ Louis replies with a smiley face.

After dinner, after Louis asks if he’s interested in souvenirs, Harry says:

‘ **I like sweatshirts.** ’

And then:

‘ **thanks xx Miss you..** ’

And seconds later, in a slightly uncharacteristic show of self-consciousness:

‘ **i realise i’ve said that twice today.** ’

Louis is still learning, but he stops in the middle of the gift shop with a sudden awareness that he hasn’t shown up enough for Harry’s liking. True the last three days between Toronto and Cleveland have been busy, and Harry wouldn’t whine about it, but he also wants affection and he wants sentiment. And as unaccustomed as Louis is to all that, he wants to give it to him.

When he’s back in his hotel room, he videocalls him.

“Hi,” Harry says. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just wanted to see your face.”

“Oh,” Harry says with a hint of a smile. “Here I am, then.”

“You seemed lonely,” Louis says. “With the ‘i miss yous’.”

“I didn’t mean to send the second one.”

“Yes, you did.” Louis laughs, noting the flush on Harry’s cheeks in spite of the imperfect video quality. “I miss you too. Like I said this morning.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I know.”

“I’m not convinced you do.”

“I know it for sure when we’re together after being apart for a long time. It’s trickier when you’re miles away,” Harry confesses. “But I’m a big boy, Louis. You don’t have to reassure me.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. Is that alright?” Louis draws a breath, his own face feeling warmer than usual. Cleveland seems unusually warm for September. “Can you allow me to be a devoted boyfriend for a minute?”

Harry’s eyes go stupidly wide for a second and then he smiles. “That’s allowed, yeah,” he says, his voice syrupy and slow. After a second and a polite cough, he asks, “How was your reading this morning?”

“It was pretty good. Do you know Fred McCullough? The one who wrote that environmentalist novel? He was there.”

“Haven’t had a chance to read it, but I hear it’s good.”

“I thought it was alright. He’s a bit weird, though. Not an arsehole, but just awkward. He started talking about his celebrity friends as if I’d know them. But I don’t have any celebrity friends.”

“Why is that?” Harry asks. “Obviously you could.”

“There’ve been people who reach out for me to sign a book for them. And there’s this unspoken agreement in that world where you do what’s asked of you without a fuss because you never know when you’ll have to ask a favor of your own. And it all starts to feel like some elite club, which isn’t that much different from the way I grew up.”

“I could see that,” Harry says. “You’re a nice person, though. I’m sure if you met someone who was worthy of your friendship, celebrity or not, you’d befriend them.”

“You think I’m _nice_?”

Harry chuckles. “I do, actually. Anytime in the past that you’ve been an arsehole, you always feel terrible about it afterwards. At the very least, you’re not mean.”

“Well, thanks,” Louis says.

There’s a lull, in which they’re just looking at one another, and then Harry asks, “Do you want to have a glass of wine with me?” and Louis says yes. They talk about work and they talk about Louis’ mum, finally, who Harry reports requested to be his friend on Facebook, and Harry regretfully says he’s planning to delete his Facebook any day now. ‘I hope she knows it’s not because of her,’ he says and Louis assures him he’ll explain the next time he speaks to her. They talk vaguely about the holidays, although it feels like such a heavy topic for no discernible reason. ‘I’d like to spend it with your family, if that’s an option,’ Louis says and Harry assures him that it definitely is.

Two glasses of wine later, Louis realises he probably should have eaten more for dinner. He’s relocated to the bed instead of the desk, and he’s not hungry necessarily, but the wine is affecting him more than it usually would.

“Simone heard us the other night, by the way,” Harry says. “When we thought she wasn’t home.”

“Oh,” Louis says when the understanding dawns on him. “Fuck.”

“We laughed about it, but it’s still a bit awkward. She said I sounded pornographic. Which makes it seem like I’m putting on a performance. Which I’m obviously not. She also said she was jealous.”

“You definitely sound much better than pornographic,” Louis says. “That’s not the word I’d use at least.”

Harry has a sip of his wine. “Go on.”

Louis knows what he wants to hear, so he says, “I’d take just the audio of you coming over a full hour of porn any day.”

“Do you want the audio?” Harry asks after a second. “I could record it for you.”

“I wouldn’t say no. Although preferably it’s as I’m making you come.”

“Oh, got it,” Harry says quietly. “Next time, then.”

Louis laughs. “Deal.”

“Technically, though,” Harry says, not quite looking at him, “you could make me come right now.”

Louis puts his chin in his palm as he thinks, fingers covering his mouth and hiding a smile. “You’re really no good.”

“I think I’ve told you before if you want me to be good, I’ll be good,” Harry says, setting his wine glass down. “What will it be, Dr Tomlinson?”

“That turns you on, doesn’t it?” Louis asks. “Addressing me that way.”

“Sometimes,” Harry says. “I used to fantasise about us fucking in the lecture hall. And I still regret that we never did it in your office.”

Louis shakes his head. “I’m just a kink to you.”

Harry laughs. “Not just,” he says. “So, do you want me to come for you?”

“What do you think?”

Harry pushes his laptop down the bed, zooming out on himself until Louis can see all of him, and all of the headboard. His smile is shy and seductive. He loosens the drawstring of his sweatpants and wriggles them off. Already Louis is overwhelmed by him. By his willingness to perform. When they’re alone in Harry’s bedroom, it isn’t a performance. But the nature of virtual sex means it has to be. So when Harry parts his legs and when he tilts his head back and begins to stroke himself, he knows to do it with a certain degree of self-assurance and finesse. So effective are his movements that Louis is instantly subdued, instantly rapt, and lured without thinking into jacking off too.

“Take off your shirt,” Louis says.

Harry immediately peels his T-shirt off and curls his hand around his dick again. His bare chest rises, his new tattoos glisten. When he groans, guttural and weak, Louis feels it in his own ribcage.

In just two days, he’ll be with him again and Louis would have been content to wait. In some ways, it might have been better to wait. Seeing Harry as he does then without touching him starts an ache in his chest that will last until he can. But he’s nothing short of grateful for the way Harry sounds or looks when he comes, or for the audio Harry sends him afterwards.

  
  


The cab comes to a stop outside a brownstone in Park Slope. Louis feels anxiety unfurling in his gut as he pays and takes the stairs to the front door. It’s possible his old friends no longer live here, but the address is the only one he has. And he reminds himself there’s nothing to lose either way. He rings the doorbell. Less than a minute later, the door opens and a tall woman appears before him.

She was always thin and pale, and years ago, she wore thick fabrics to thwart the sun or the cold or both. They were all sort of malnourished back then, he remembers. Not purposefully, but just never making time to eat or eat healthily at least. She looks different now. Same baggy clothes, but longer blonde hair and a noticeably swollen belly.

“Hi, Erin,” Louis says.

The woman exhales a shocked breath and then her smile grows and grows.

“Get in here,” she says finally, stepping away from the door and opening her arms with a wide, theatrical flourish. Louis huffs a laugh but steps into the hug and allows himself to be squeezed with all the force and love and feeling his friend has undoubtedly stored over the last decade. When they separate, Erin just looks at him. “Wait 'til Ramsey sees you.”

She shuts the door. “Ramsey!” she belts into the apartment, half-stunning Louis.

Their teacup poodles scurry around Louis’ feet like its cottonwood season. He and the dogs follow Erin into the living room.

“What is it?” he hears from another part of the home.

“Just get down here,” Erin insists. To Louis, she whispers, “Do you want a drink? I think we’ll need drinks. Not me, because I’m pregnant.”

“Congrats, by the way,” Louis says. “How far along are you?”

“Five months.”

Finally, a third person steps into the room. Ramsey in a long apricot dress with her locs piled atop her head. She hasn’t changed much at all. Always a crier, for one. When she sets her eyes on him, Louis swears they’re already glassy. “What the fuck?”

“Sorry to drop in on you like this,” he says, smiling tentatively.

“Shut up,” she says, approaching him for a hug. She presses her palms to his cheeks. “How have you not aged?”

“You tell me,” Louis says.

She grins and starts guiding him back to the couch. They all sit. Erin makes a mule for him and an Aperol spritz for Ramsey. Ramsey disappears for a second and returns with Louis’ novel and a Sharpie. She sets it down on the coffee table. “It’s brilliant, by the way,” she says. “I’d love your autograph. Not now. Just before you go.”

“Of course,” Louis says.

“We were in Chicago when you did that reading in Williamsburg recently. Otherwise, we would’ve come,” Ramsey explains. “We always miss your readings.”

“I’ve only done two here in the last eight years. I promise it’s fine. And I’ve never seen one of your plays live,” Louis says to Erin. “It’s the long-distance, that’s all.”

“And the distance in general,” Erin says. “The three of us are terrible at keeping in touch.”

“True,” Louis says, nodding. He takes a sip of his drink. “I think it was just a little awkward for a while. For me, at least.”

Ramsey lifts her brows. “How so?”

“Suppose it had to do with me running off and marrying a woman?”

“Oh, right, that.”

Erin, ever the showman, exclaims, “You did _what_?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Fuck off.”

They all laugh — soft, easy laughter, despite the subject matter. With both women — Ramsey, with her legs folded beneath her, wearing her billowy dress, and Erin with her old NYU hoodie and messy hair — Louis feels like he could very well be in a common room at NYU. But it’s not until the phone rings in the office and Erin excuses herself, that Louis feels at ease.

It’s not because Erin is difficult to talk to, but because it’s difficult to talk openly in general with both of them looking at him. And it’s Ramsey he was always closest too. Ramsey who he partied with and shared an apartment with for two years and stayed out until 3:00 with, eating greasy fries covered in hot sauce from the nearest bodega.

She looks at him, almost the way Harry does, like any secrets between them are inconsequential when squared with the abundance of love between them. “I heard what happened, obviously. To your wife," she says. "I don’t know what that was like for you, but I’m sorry either way.”

“It was rough, but I’m doing a lot better. We were actually close friends. Even at the end. And I miss her, but I’m also happy. I think it’s the first time I can say that since we were young. And even then that was different—”

“Yeah, it was mostly drugs,” Ramsey says with a snort. “I never needed an explanation, just so you know. I figured you had your reasons, and I figured you didn’t have much say in deciding those reasons. It was your father, wasn’t it?”

“Sure, but it was also me. I was afraid for a long time, too,” Louis acknowledges. “I’ll be here in NY indefinitely, so maybe next time — hopefully, when I’m a lot less sober — I can tell you everything. But the truth is— I have a reason to not be afraid anymore. It’s hard to believe it myself, but I’m _genuinely_ happy—”

“And in love,” Ramsey says with only a hint of a question mark.

Louis pauses, his mouth ajar.

Ramsey sets her glass down. “Oh my God. Am I right?”

Louis narrows his eyes, slightly peeved at his revelation being swept out from under him. “I was getting to that.”

“I _knew_ it,” Ramsey reports. “I’ve _never_ seen you like this. So sunny and sagely. Remember David? You really liked him, but not even then. So tell me about him. It’s mutual, right? I want every detail.”

“It's mutual,” Louis says. “It’s why I’m still here in New York. He’s here, so—”

Erin returns. “What are you two smiling about?”

“Louis is in love,” Ramsey says.

“With… a man or…?”

“I’m still gay, love,” Louis replies.

Ramsey outright cackles.

“What’s his name?” Erin asks, perching on the arm of the sofa.

“Harry. He’s from back home.” Louis twiddles his thumbs. “He was one of my students at one point.”

Ramsey laughs even louder. “What a saga. And you’re living with him?”

“For now,” Louis says. “Just until I buy a place.”

“You’re _buying_?” Ramsey exclaims. “Are you planning to marry him too?”

Louis finishes his drink. “It’s not something we’ve talked about, but—” He scrubs his face with his hands. “I don't know, maybe. Probably. I would, yeah."

Ramsey and Erin share an astonished smile. “If I weren’t pregnant, I’d pop a bottle of champagne right now,” Erin says. “Actually, I can have one glass, at least. Should we open the champagne? Or no, I have a better idea! You tell us when you’re free next week and we’ll make dinner. You won’t have to bring a thing except your new lover. And we’ll all have champagne then.”

Louis looks between the two of them. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t overthink it, Lou,” Ramsey says.

“I have to go to Miami next week, but I’ll ask him,” Louis says.

“When are you back?” Erin asks.

“Wednesday.”

“How’s Thursday?”

“ _I’ll ask him_ ,” Louis says again. But knowing Harry, he adds, “Thursday would probably work, though.”


	2. Chapter 2

Happiness can be so terrifying. Not the temporary emotion, but the permanent state of being. Happiness is a child. So entirely dependent on the steps one takes to ensure its longevity. When he’s with Louis, Harry tries not to think like this. But when he’s with Louis, he’s so happy and so content that sometimes he can’t help it.

On Saturday, they have what Louis refers to as “a first date” and what Harry maintains is at least their second, and perhaps their third.

“When have we gone on two dates?” Louis asks. They sit in Washington Square Park, on the stone ledge of the massive fountain at its center.

“The first was the night we went for sushi and had drinks in your office,” Harry replies, dunking his spoon again into Louis’ gelato — earl-grey-flavoured from Harry’s favorite place nearby (and much better than his own). “The second was in London. When we went to that Oscar Wilde exhibit and had lunch afterwards.”

“You might have an argument for the second. But the first is questionable.”

“It was really romantic,” Harry argues. “And it ended in a kiss. A _first_ kiss.”

He starts thinking about it, of course. His heart thrumming so forcefully it should have been cause for concern, but there were greater and more pressing issues. Louis wanted to be kissed in that moment, and there had scarcely been a time when Harry wasn’t aching to kiss him. It lasted no more than ten seconds but he remembers their tongues touching infinitesimally. Then suddenly the spell dissolving… 

Louis is looking at him now. Behind him, the sprinkle of water from the fountain is like fairy dust. Like another spell descending. 

Harry leans across the small space between them. There’s a flicker of awareness in Louis’ gaze — of their publicity — and Harry feels it too. If Louis ever kissed a man in public, it would’ve been at least a decade ago and Harry historically shuns PDA, although his relationship with Louis is ahistorical. This kiss, out in the open, is new and jarring for them both, but after a second, the awareness passes and they do it again.

Drawing away, his gaze on Louis’ soft mouth, Harry says, “It’s off to a good start, our third date.”

“Not if you keep eating my gelato,” Louis says, moving the cup out of Harry’s impending reach.

They walk to the Whitney Museum afterwards and to a bar after that. The chill in the air didn’t stop them from having gelato and so it doesn’t stop them from drinking outside either. They talk a lot — about passers-by, of which there’s never a shortage in New York. They make plans — for films in the park, and rooftop dinners, and speakeasy happy hours.

A cab ride away, there’s a dinner theatre Harry has always wanted to go to, which is where they end their night. Watching an independent film about two nurses in love in the midst of World War II. Louis holds his hand the whole time, tracing the lines of Harry’s palm with his thumb.

It occurs to Harry, then. It occurs to him on the train ride home as Louis flips through the Taschen book he purchased at the Whitney, one earphone in his right ear and the other in Harry’s left, funneling Van Morrison’s ‘Sweet Thing’.

And again as Louis settles on the floor of Harry’s bedroom with him, sharing another round of beers. He is candlelit with roseate cheeks, and his voice a featherweight as he talks about an art class he once took at NYU. “Do you still draw?” he asks Harry.

“I do. I finished the one of you, although I don’t know where I hid it.” Seeing Louis’ confusion, Harry adds, “I left the drawing folded up on my desk, so I’d remember to take care of it the next time I was drunk. One night I came home from a party and I picked a book from the bookshelf without looking and I tucked the drawing inside and then, shuffled it with a pile of books, and put them back on the shelf.”

Louis blinks. “Christ…”

“It was a bit dramatic,” Harry says.

“Fitting for you, though.” Louis glances at the bookshelf.

Harry smiles. “I bet I could find it now.”

“Good idea,” Louis says. And so they reconvene at the bookshelf and begin sorting through Harry’s collection, which is large but not insurmountable. Nothing like Louis’ at one point, most of which, he says, were donated.

“I had way too many books when I moved. And then when I cleared out my office a few months ago,” Louis says, distracted by a science fiction novel in his hands. “There are lots of good used bookstores here, though. I can get them back, if I need to.”

“There’s one just down the street that I love. They’ve got a little cafe too. We should go.”

“I have a meeting with David Chatterji tomorrow. To see if there’s room for me at NYU. Maybe we can have coffee there afterwards.”

“Date number four,” Harry says, and Louis shoots him an amused smile. Harry selects a hardcover novel from the shelf. Before he can open it, a rectangle of paper flutters out from its pages. He and Louis share a glance. Louis plucks the paper from the floor between them and unfolds it. Harry can’t really bear his quiet scrutiny afterwards, so he busies himself with the book in his hands.

“I only bought this for the inscription inside,” he says, quietly, and mostly to himself.

Louis peels his gaze away from the drawing. “What does it say?”

“My dearest,” Harry reads. “You, me and the devil makes three.”

“I like that,” Louis says, thoughtfully.

“Me too. Do you like the drawing?”

“I do.”

Harry’s nose wrinkles. “Why do I feel like you hate it?”

“To be honest with you, I thought I would,” Louis says. “You’ve seen the paintings at my parents’ home. I always hated those. I don’t really know why I posed for you. Except you’ll notice I don’t say no to you very often.”

“I hadn’t noticed that,” Harry says, grinning.

“Well, now you know.” Louis turns pensive. “I don’t remember smiling when I posed for this.”

“I’m pretty sure you were. It’s how I always remembered you.”

“You remembered me smiling?”

“I remembered you happy,” Harry says. “I had to, I think. It’s how I was able to leave. If I pictured you miserable, I might not have been able to. So I pictured you happy and I told myself that ultimately you would be — with someone else — and somehow that helped.”

Louis frowns. “Does it make me selfish that I didn’t picture you happy with anyone else?”

“I think that just makes you realistic,” Harry says. “I won’t be happy with anyone else.”

And there, it occurs to him once more. That in this room, sitting just across from him, is both the keeper and the key to boundless happiness. The kind of happiness a person waits their whole life to find. The kind that must be cherished and cared for, and that he is terrified to ever fail. But then, Louis is crawling over to meet him and when they kiss, Harry is assured that he never will. How could he ever fail this bright, beautiful thing they birthed in the rough?

  
  


At the Cinderblock, the quaint anarchist used bookstore Harry frequents, he sees Cameron and two things occur (or reoccur) to him at once: 1) Cameron frequents the Cinderblock as well and 2) they often frequented it together.

He takes a sip of his latte while berating himself for forgetting those facts before inviting Louis here. For forgetting Cameron. He’s thought of him randomly and in passing, but clearly not enough to remember that this was once _their_ favorite bookstore.

He feels nauseated suddenly and wonders if Cameron intends to stay. And if he stays, should Harry then consider leaving? Louis is still ten-minutes out, and with the trains or the traffic — depending on which mode of transportation he’s taking — it could be even longer. 

Then Harry looks across the room again and Cameron looks back. Harry tries a smile. Cameron looks reluctant, but that doesn’t stop him from coming over once he gets his coffee. “Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” Harry says.

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“I am, but you can sit if you’d like. He’s running behind.”

Cameron sinks into the seat. “I’ve been avoiding this place,” he says. “Since you dumped me.”

Harry bites his top lip and struggles for something to say. The only thing that comes to mind is yet another ‘sorry’ and Cameron must anticipate this because he shakes his head and says, “Not to make you feel bad.”

“I do feel bad,” Harry says. “But I don’t think there’s a way to make it any better.”

“I mean, you could explain. You never really did. And I still don’t understand how we got here. Or what went wrong. One night, we meet up and you’re dead quiet and you look like someone’s killed your cat.”

Harry doesn’t appreciate that analogy.

“Next morning, you call and tell me you can’t do it anymore. I don’t get it. What exactly were we doing besides having fun?” Cameron asks. “I had fun, at least. I liked you a lot.”

“I liked you too,” Harry says, but Cameron immediately flattens his lips into an implacable grimace. It’s the truth, but it’s not the whole truth and they both know it.

Harry always felt as though he was dancing on eggshells with other men and being too phony only to grow bored and inevitably break their hearts. He was trying to be different with Cameron, he remembers. More embarrassingly, he was trying to be with Cameron the way he’d been with Louis. That obviously didn’t work, although they developed an ease of conversation that he liked. They did have fun. They went for drinks with fun people and they went to fun films and talked about their buoyant childhood. But life isn’t all fun. Sometimes life is taxing and sometimes it’s unjust, and he didn’t feel confident in Cameron’s ability to discuss or face any of that.

It was the inherent dissatisfaction Harry always felt, and has always felt with men in the past. He always wanted more. He wanted to be challenged. He wanted to be riled up. He wanted passionate debates and passionate sex. He wanted something deliberate. Fun, but meaningful.

To be fair, it was never realistic, but then he met Louis.

“There’s someone else,” Harry says, finally. “I didn’t know how to say that on the phone because it was complicated at the time. It wasn’t while we were dating, but before. At Oxford. I was in love with someone and I thought I was moving on over the past year, but the fact that I never told you about him means I probably didn’t want to. The night before I ended things with you, I saw him at that reading I went to. And I realised nothing’s changed. I didn’t know what would become of it all, but it didn't seem fair to you, no matter what happened between me and him.”

“But you are with him now,” Cameron concludes.

“I am,” Harry says.

“So you were in love with him this whole time, but you were never in love with me?”

Harry doesn’t answer that. He’s unsure whether it’s a question or a statement. Either way it seems obvious and unnecessarily cruel to agree outright.

“I don’t think I was in love with you, to be fair,” Cameron says.

“That does seem fair,” Harry says. “I really am sor—”

“Why did he let you go?” Cameron asks.

Harry falls silent. He thinks about it. “I’m not sure he did.”

“So, you’re happy?”

“Yeah, very,” Harry says.

“Is he the one you’ve been waiting for?”

For a moment, Harry thinks Cameron is asking if Louis is the one he’s been waiting for his whole life, and not right in this instant at the bookstore. Actually, he can’t tell how Cameron means it, and either way the answer is yes.

So he nods, taking another sip of his latte. “Also I know this was _our_ bookstore…”

Cameron laughs. “Don’t worry. It’s fine. The next time you see me here, maybe I’ll be on a date too.”

Harry’s phone buzzes on the table, and he sees the word ‘here’. He looks towards the door and there’s Louis, removing his shades. Cameron looks as well just as Louis waves and begins making his way over to them. Cameron stands. “Good to see you.”

“You too,” Harry says, and then Cameron slips out of the seat and eases past Louis.

Louis glances at his retreating figure. “Hey,” he says to Harry, taking a seat.

“That was Cameron,” Harry says.

“What did he have to say?”

“Nothing, really. I told him about you.”

Louis peeks at the menu in front of him. “Good things I hope.”

“Oh, no. Awful things,” Harry says with a cunning smile that Louis mirrors. “Horrible, terrible things.”

  
  


In Miami, Louis calls after dinner time, suggesting to Harry that video calls will become a consistent fixture whenever they’re apart. He’s thrilled by the notion. It may only last as long as they’re newly-coupled, but he hopes not. One day when they’re in their fifties, he likes to imagine they’ll still speak dutifully to each other like this when a conference or a book tour has transported them to hotel rooms across the world.

He sits at his desk in his bathrobe and accepts the call.

Louis smiles. “You look very cosy.”

“I took a very long bath in preparation for this.”

“Oh.” Louis’ brows shoot upwards. “You were expecting a repeat of last time?”

“No, but I wouldn’t be opposed,” Harry says, shrugging. “You look tired, though.”

“I am. I went for drinks with some people I haven't seen since the London Book Fair three years ago. It was fun. I just probably should’ve napped. How was your day?”

“Very dull,” Harry says. “Oh, except your mum reached out to me again. And I gave her my number. I sent her this picture of you.” Harry turns his phone for Louis to see one he took in Washington Square Park.

“You don’t have to keep talking to her, you know,” Louis says. “I told her you’re planning to delete your Facebook. It’ll be hell getting her to leave you alone now that you gave her your number.”

“I don’t actually mind. I like talking to her,” Harry says carefully. He detects a very subtle shift in tone. He tries to pick up on as much of Louis’ expression as he can. “Is that alright?” 

“I don’t know. Things are weird between us. They always have been. I think it’s especially weird if she’s using you to keep tabs on me.”

“I swear it’s not like that. She doesn’t really ask about you. She didn’t ask for the picture either. Mostly she just talks about your family.”

Louis’ brows crease. He looks at a point just out of frame. “Still a bit weird.”

“If you don’t want me to talk to her, I’ll stop.”

“To be honest with you, I don’t, really.”

Harry just blinks at him. He didn’t expect him to say as much. “Okay.”

“I’d rather you just ask if you want to know things about my family. I’d rather tell you myself.”

“That seems sort of obvious,” Harry says. “Of course I want to know things about your family. I hardly know anything as is. I’ve just never felt like you want to talk about them.”

“But then it’s not a huge surprise that I don’t want my mum telling you, is it?”

Harry narrows his eyes. “Okay. I know it was difficult for you with your dad…” He trails off because he doesn’t know enough about Louis’ dad to talk about him. “You’ve told me how it was difficult. But your mum’s told me nice things about your childhood. Joyful things. She talked about you teaching your siblings to swim and writing her poetry when you were a kid. It’s nothing critical, I promise.”

“You’re not getting it.”

Harry’s skin feels flushed, and not in the dizzying way it gets when he’s with Louis usually. “Then explain it to me.”

“Sometimes you push too much.”

“Sometimes I feel like I have to. You talk to my mum, Louis. You’ve met my immediate family, and I still know hardly anything about yours.”

“Maybe there’s nothing worth telling you.”

“That can’t be true. Everything about you is worth telling me. And these are people you grew up with. Who you spent decades of your life knowing. There’s definitely something—”

“Then maybe I just don’t want to.”

Harry falls silent, his jaw locking. Mosley brushes herself across his ankle, but he hardly feels it. He hardly feels anything except exhaustion, suddenly. “I should go. I actually have a story to finish.”

Louis massages his forehead. “I don’t want to fight with you either, Harry.”

“Then let’s not fight. Let’s not talk about it. Let’s see how far that gets us.”

“Come the fuck on,” Louis says, tiredly. They look at each other, both unyielding. Louis nods. “Alright, fine. Have a good night.”

“Goodnight,” Harry says, and shuts his laptop.

  
  


As angry as Harry fell asleep the night before, it all seems very stupid when he wakes up. He spends most of his morning thinking about the particularly stupid things that were said. For all that he doesn’t yet know about Louis, drawing comparisons between his own loving family and Louis’ seems particularly dense. And while Louis’ mum has been kind to Harry, she did aid in closeting him for years. Surely she has happier, skewed memories of his childhood than Louis would. As much as she wants to make amends, it has to be on Louis’ terms. Not on her own. Obviously not on Harry’s.

It’s all too much to think about before he’s finished his coffee. It was too much to talk about over a video call. What he wants more than anything is to get through his workday and to be here when Louis gets back so that they can talk about it in person.

Simone exits her bedroom, and they stand together in the kitchen, dressed in their work clothes and sipping cups of coffee. “Are the love notes becoming a thing?”

“What?” Harry asks, confusedly.

“I saw Louis writing a note yesterday before he left, then he folded it up,” Simone says, mimicking the careful way Louis might have done so with some exaggeration. “And went into your bedroom, then he waved goodbye. I assumed it was a love note. Or softcore porn.”

Harry gives her a look. “He doesn’t write softcore porn.”

“You’d love it if he did.”

Harry resists a smile. “Have a beautiful day,” he says, heading back to his bedroom. He goes to the desk, which is the only obvious place to look, although he was sitting there just last night and didn’t notice a thing out of place. The surface is cluttered, of course, but it’s always that way. His laptop. His sketchbook. Candles. Last night’s cup of tea. A short stack of books at the edge. On top is the one Harry mentioned after their date, which Louis had been reading the night before he left. Harry flips it open and the note is there.

Certainly not where he would have hidden it, but he won’t complain.

It’s a sheet of yellow legal paper, folded into a square with an H written at its center. He unfolds it, sinks to his bedroom floor, and smooths the creases out with delicacy.

_Hope it’s alright but I took your drawing with me. I do like it a lot. And I think it’s a good reminder to see myself the way you see me. I think if I’d done that sooner, we could have been this happy sooner. I’m trying not to think too much on the past. You’ve made it clear you don’t want me to and neither do I. But when I think about who I was a year and a half ago, it’s impossible to think that person could have any of this now. He wasn’t open. He wasn’t honest. He wasn’t brave._

_But I want to be all of those things for you. I’m trying for you._

_I’ve been thinking about our ‘date’ in London. You got the duck, which turned out to be better than whatever I ordered. We emptied that bottle of Lambrusco and ate too much bread, if that’s even thing. And if we’re calling it a date, then it was the best I’d ever gone on. You looked incredible. You laughed a lot. You blushed sometimes. I felt very lucky to be sharing a table with you._

_I remember we got in a row and I admitted to you that I was jealous about a certain literary agent… I didn’t think about this at the time, but I saw_ ~~_Vince_~~ _at a conference in Paris six months ago, and seeing him, I remembered that moment and I went back to my hotel room and I realised that I should’ve known then I loved you._

_I didn’t stop you from going home with him because I was looking out for you. And I didn’t stop you because I was worried about professionalism. I did it because I was selfish and I wanted you for myself and I didn’t think I was deserving and I didn’t think he was deserving. I did it because I was jealous._

_And I had to admit that. Because I would never want you to believe I thought you couldn’t handle yourself. I think you could probably handle anything. I think you’re brilliant. I think you’re strong and bold, and I’ve always admired you. I’ve always thought the very best of you, and it was important to me then that you knew that, and it still is._

_And I believe you when you say these things about me too. I believe you when you draw me smiling. Love can’t be easily defined, but I think we’ve got it sorted._

_You, me, and the devil makes three…_

_But you’re the only one I need._

_Love,_

_Louis_

  
  


That evening, there’s a _tap tap_ at his bedroom door and then, Louis is there. He sets his holdall down and shuts the door behind himself. “I’m getting the sense Simone hates me,” he says. “Although she still let me in.”

Harry puts his book aside, his smile small. “She doesn’t hate you,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “What happened to the key I gave you?”

“It kept getting jammed.” Louis shrugs, looking idly around the room, and then again at Harry.

“I found your note this morning,” Harry says. “I loved it.”

Louis smiles too. “I’m glad.” After another second of hesitation, he pushes his shoes off and crawls up onto the bed. He sinks to the mattress in front of Harry, his arms thrown loosely around Harry’s middle. “I’d apologise but we agreed not to.”

“I’m not sure you have much to apologise for.”

“I was a dickhead.”

“That’s nothing new,” Harry says, trying for a smile.

Louis looks at him seriously. “I don’t want to be that way with you anymore,” he says. “I get defensive when it comes to my family. What I said had more to do with my mum reaching out to you than with you responding to her, if that makes any sense.”

“I think it does,” Harry says. He touches Louis’ cheek and Louis leans into the touch. He kisses Harry’s wrist and Harry feels the tension loosen. “I’m not the most patient person. Especially if I really want something. And I really want to know you.”

“I think you probably know me better than anyone.”

“Maybe, but you can’t say we’re done learning things about each other, can you?”

“No, I guess not.”

Something seems to give between them. Harry wonders if Louis and Emily often apologised or admitted when they were wrong. He hopes this feels different for him. It certainly feels different for Harry. Louis rests his head in Harry’s lap and Harry runs his fingers through his hair. He leans into his pillow, shutting his eyes. The window is ajar and in flows sounds of the city — the train off in the distance and the hollow echo of cars zipping down streets. A breeze drifts in as well — crisp and promising. He thinks about the rest of autumn with Louis, and then winter. Christmas, which they’ve talked about spending with Harry’s family. And then a new year. 

“I don’t really speak to my siblings,” Louis says, suddenly and softly. “Three of them have children now and I hardly speak to my nieces or nephews either. I spent years avoiding my family as much as I could… And the truth is I feel guilty about it. I miss my brother, especially.”

Harry’s fingers slow to a still.

“My father reserved most of his aggression for the boys. Even after Ernie was born, I got most of it. I made sure of that. I took the blame for things that Ernie did. I took responsibility for him… For all of them. I taught them to swim. We had tutors, but I taught them to read more fiction. I shared my favourite books with them. I kept my sisters’ boyfriends a secret from my parents. I’m not a snitch, but I made sure to meet the boyfriends. On top of everything else, it was hard to feel responsible for anyone, but I did.

"And I still felt relieved when Ernie was born. I don’t feel like we got much time together. By the time, he was ten, I was at uni. But we had fun and I taught him a bit of footie too. I remember when I came back from New York one month, he’d grown so much taller than me and I hated it. He hardly listened to me as is.”

Harry huffs a laugh. “He sounds great.”

Louis lifts his head, a tender smile on his face. “He’s pretty great, yeah. My sisters are nice too, but their husbands are dickheads. And I worry about my nephews sometimes who’ll probably turn out just like them.” He drums his fingers on Harry’s hip. “None of my siblings know I’m gay. Or at least I’ve never told them.”

“Would you ever feel comfortable telling them?”

“Maybe. I don’t have much to lose,” Louis says. “And it’s the only way I could ever be close to them again. I can’t live another lie.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“I wanted to.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“Sometimes you have to,” Louis says. “Sometimes you don’t.”

“That’s tricky.”

“We’re tricky people,” Louis says. “I refuse to be so stubborn about something that it fucks this all up. I think I can promise you that.”

“I’ll try to be more patient in my endeavor to know everything about you.”

“I don’t know everything about you, Harry,” Louis says.

“Ask more.”

“Alright. Name a place you’ve always wanted to go.”

“Definitely Florence,” Harry says. “I’ve been playing around with setting a story there. Also, for the food and the wine. And the _cheese_.”

“We should go then.”

Harry lifts his bows. “Onto our first holiday already? Or was Barbados the first?”

“Of course not. We were working. Holidays have to be intentional.”

“I’m in,” Harry says.

Louis pushes himself up entirely, moving even closer. He kisses him on the mouth. “We’re going to Florence.”

  
  


Louis exits the cab and Harry shuts the car door behind him, turning to face the quaint brownstone ahead. They take the stairs. Louis rings the doorbell and leans into the opposite railing.

“You look great, by the way,” Harry says. “I meant to say so earlier. I’m feeling very lucky.”

Louis smiles. “Makes two of us.” In one hand, he holds the neck of a $100 bottle of wine. He reaches for Harry’s hand with the other. “Not nervous, are you?”

“A bit,” Harry says. “You?”

“Only a bit. She promised it’d be no more than five people.”

“We can handle more than five people,” Harry says.

The front door opens, swathing them in toasted light.

“Oh, wow,” Ramsey says after beckoning them in. She takes a good solid look at Harry, her brows darting upwards. “Louis told me you were a writer?”

“I am, yes,” Harry chirps. “I’m Harry. Thanks for having us.”

Ramsey smiles, and when her dimples appear, his own smile grows so that his do too. “Thanks for coming,” she says. “You’re definitely not an actor?”

“No,” he says confusedly. “Louis always says I should be one, though.”

“You have the face for it,” Ramsey says, shutting the front door. “The dining room is straight down the hall.”

She and Louis exchange a quick hug, in which she says to him — not discreetly: “Gorgeous.”

He follows Ramsey into the dining room where three others are already seated and they all look at him the exact same way. She introduces them all — Erin, her partner, then Ben and Jane. “We’re just waiting on Valerie and her new girlfriend, Kelly,” she says, looking apologetically at Louis. “Have a seat! Is wine good for you or do you want a drink?”

They take the wine, both red. Everyone at the table is looking at them, not explicitly but he feels their attention. He feels the weight of their questions too, just waiting to rush outward.

“How does everyone know each other?” Harry asks, deciding to beat them to it.

Jane’s face lights up. “Ramsey and I met at Cubbyhole. It’s a lesbian bar near NYU. We dated for a while until she met Erin,” she says. “I don’t remember how Louis and I met, except that he and Ramsey were always around one another.”

“You left out the part about us having a class together,” Louis says. “And getting drunk on Professor Hewitt’s rooftop. Pretty sure that was before you met Ramsey.”

“Oh, right,” Jane says. She waves her pointer finger from Harry to Louis. “What about the two of you?”

Ramsey returns to the room with Valerie and Kelly, and fresh slices of bread, and Jane’s question gets lost in the commotion. They do another round of introductions, and everyone starts in on the bread and butter. 

“Should we toast to Louis? To his long-awaited return?” Valerie says. “ _And_ his very fine boyfriend, Harry.”

The rest of the table raises their glasses and so Harry, bashfully, raises his too. 

“How long are you in town for?” Valerie asks Louis.

“I’m here indefinitely,” Louis says. 

Valerie studies him narrow-eyed. “What’s the deal with you teaching?”

“I still have a few friends at NYU. Like Dr. Chatterji. He says they’ve got a course next spring that he thinks I’d be a good fit for,” Louis says. “So, I’ll likely be there come fall.”

Everyone mulls that over. With her mouth full, Jane goes, “ _So_? How’d you meet?”

Now, Harry and Louis glance at one another. Harry chooses then to have a drink of wine. It’s not that he’s ashamed to say it, but these are Louis’ friends. He should be the one to decide what to disclose.

“Harry was my TA,” Louis says outright.

“Scandalous,” Jane replies.

“Didn’t you fuck that adjunct professor from Ukraine?” Ramsey asks her, entering the room again with three dishes — of mixed vegetables, pasta and a roasted chicken.

“I didn’t say it was wrong,” Jane clarifies. “But it was scandalous, wasn’t it?”

Louis shrugs. “Not really.”

“That doesn’t exactly explain how it happened either,” Ben says.

“Are we all prepared to explain exactly how we got together with our partners?” Louis asks.

“Our story is amazing,” Valerie chimes in.

Ramsey looks suddenly exasperated. “What did he do, Harry? To convince you he was a good idea?”

Harry is unprepared to be addressed directly. Suddenly all eyes are on him, except Louis’. He’s twirling the wine around in his glass, pretending it’s far more interesting. “He didn’t try to convince me of anything. I think I did that on my own.”

“So you pursued him, then?” Jane asks.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Harry says.

Jane and Erin exchange a look.

“Alright,” Louis says. “Some of you don’t know this, but I was married to a childhood friend for nearly a decade. It was a terrible idea. We were going through a divorce right before she passed, although it never happened. In the middle of all that, Harry was there. And I didn’t know it at the time but I needed him very much as it turns out. So all these ways that you might describe a typical relationship — they don’t apply. ‘Cause it wasn’t typical. It wasn’t scandalous either. It was just us.”

Louis finishes off his drink in the silence that follows. Turning to Ramsey, he asks, “Can we eat?”

Ramsey smiles, amused and seemingly proud. “Yes, please.”

It’s merely a blip in the night. Harry suspects that these friends have endured various tensions and frays. They love to poke at one another. They love debate. But they also love to joke and to drink and to eat. The wine and cocktail glasses are refilled, and Harry learns these friends also love to dance.

It’s Erin that suggests putting on her old playlists. And Ben that leads Harry into the center of the living room. The lights are dimmed. Some candles are lit so that the room smells of vanilla, but also of rosemary and thyme from their dinner.

The three glasses of wine he’s had hit him two songs in. He rolls up his sleeves and before he knows it, he and Valerie are jumping and swinging around to ‘Dancing Queen’. He spies Louis on one of the couches with Jane’s arm over his shoulder. He’s listening to her for the most part, but his gaze strays towards Harry twice before he catches him looking back. His smile is soft and private. Like the underside of Harry’s duvet. Or the cascade of soap down Louis’ back during a shared shower.

The song changes to ‘Private Eyes’ by Hall & Oates and the irony — of them gazing at each other — makes them both tilt their heads back and laugh. Seconds later, Erin changes the song to Tiffany’s ‘I Think We’re Alone’. Harry approaches Louis, extending his hands, and Jane is all to happy to remove herself from the equation. Harry loves the look on Louis’ face. He loves his wary but curious expression, unsure but eager. He is learning more and more what it’s like to be at the center of Louis’ love and attention. To unnerve Louis and yet to thrill him. When Harry wants to dance, for example, Louis wills himself to dance.

He sets his hands in Harry’s and allows himself to be drawn to his feet. They’re all dancing and yet, swaying with Louis, he feels blessedly alone with him and content to be so.

  
  


Harry insists on helping Ramsey load the dishwasher. At the kitchen counter, she sparks a joint and extends it to Harry. “A reward,” she says. “Maybe we’ll share with them later.”

Harry smiles and takes a drag, peeking into the living room where Louis is sprawled on the floor with Valerie and Kelly, talking very quickly and gesturing with his hands. Valerie issues a comment that makes them all sputter with laughter. Harry looks misty-eyed on him, on the glimpses of him as he existed years ago in his early twenties.

“What was he like back then?” he asks Ramsey, handing the joint off.

“Mostly the same as far as I can tell,” Ramsey says. “Just the best person to be around. You know those people. The friends you get kind of addicted to. You want to hang out with them all the time. Bask in their energy. He had a lot of energy. He wanted to go everywhere and see everything. What’s he like with you?”

“Definitely my favorite person to be around,” Harry says. “At Oxford, we were at odds more times than we were at peace around each other, but whenever he relaxed, it was different. In Barbados, we were sitting on the beach one night and he told me things about New York and things he’s seen. And I remember I just never wanted to leave. It felt like it was just the two of this alone.”

“You know something just occurred to me,” Ramsey says. “I think Louis might have written his last novel about you.”

Harry recalls those passages devoted to ‘H’. The archeologist waxing poetic about the touch and the taste of his lover. “He did,” he says. “Sort of.”

“Oh my God. And there’s the island too.”

Harry feels himself blushing. “It’s a lot, yeah,” he says with a chuckle. “I read it and I thought surely if someone writes this way about me, we can sort the rest out.”

“No one has ever written a novel for me, but I would’ve given it a shot if they did,” she says. “That’s very powerful of you, inspiring something like that.”

Harry laughs. He slumps against the counter, his limbs loose. “I mostly just feel vulnerable.”

“That doesn’t make you any less powerful,” Ramsey says. “Did he break your heart?”

Harry lifts his head. He hesitates, torn between answering truthfully and not answering at all. If Louis hasn’t told her what happened between them, he supposes he shouldn’t. But then, he expects Ramsey and Erin to be in their lives forever. He expects plenty of dinner parties and drunken soirees to come, and the truth eventually will out. In the end, he takes too long to say anything, and the silence alone is an answer.

Ramsey smiles softly, handing the joint to him. Harry takes it.

“I feel like he’s putting it back together, if that’s any consolation,” Harry says. And then some. He often feels like his heart is mending and growing at the same time. As if to accommodate his affection for Louis, which doubles consistently.

“Is it?”

“I think so,” Harry says. “It’s more important that he’s putting himself back together, though, if that makes any sense. I do trust him. He wouldn’t come back to me if he wasn’t ready. He’s not a selfish person.”

“No, he isn’t.” Ramsey studies him, holding a cloud of smoke in her mouth before exhaling slowly. “There’s still so much I don’t know about who he is now. And I don’t want to ask because he’s in a good place. No point rehashing the past.”

“I don’t think he’d mind if you asked.”

Ramsey taps her ash into the sink. “You know, when I was younger, I was really hesitant to transition. I knew I wanted to and I knew it would make me happy, but for a long time, I didn’t have anyone by my side. I didn’t have Erin. Louis was one of the first people I met who really supported me. Helped me find a doctor. Helped me pay for a few appointments. And then one day, he was just gone. He told us he was going home to see his father and then he just never came back. A year later I saw in the bio of an article that he was married. I remember emailing, and he wrote back, but it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it. I tried to stay in touch, but he just wasn’t himself anymore.

“For the longest time, whenever I thought of him, my heart was heavy. I didn’t know if he had friends in the UK,” she says. “But I felt very strongly that he was alone. And the fact that he didn’t reach out confirmed it. He hated to bother anyone else with his problems. He hated for people to feel sorry for him. The fact that he didn’t ask for help never assured me that he didn’t desperately need it. I don’t know if that makes sense either, but— Not much of life does.”

The urge to cry is sudden and Harry can’t stop it. Neither can Ramsey, it turns out. Harry thinks about all that she’s said, and what starts as a sting at the corners of his eyes quickly overwhelms him. His vision blurs. He and Ramsey wipe their eyes quickly and discreetly. He glances into the living room, but Louis is still on the floor, his hands on his stomach, fingers tapping to the beat of ‘Arrow Through Me’. 

“I’m really happy you’re here,” Ramsey says.

Harry returns his attention to her. “Me too.”

“I don’t need to know everything that happened,” she decides. “Our hearts aren’t heavy anymore, so that’s enough for me.”

  
  


Tiptoeing into the apartment, Harry checks for Simone’s keys or light under her door, and sees neither. He and Louis pause in the kitchen, drinking glasses of water from the tap, and then against their better judgement, snagging the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge.

Harry loosens all the buttons of his shirt and shucks off all his trousers. He lights a candle on his dresser and collapses into bed while Louis fills their glasses. He fluffs the pillows up beneath his head. Louis sits at the opposite end, his face turned towards the AC. He’s so beautiful with the moonlight and candlelight on him. Sometimes it hurts how beautiful he is. 

“I know you want to get back to work, but you’re lucky you don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow,” Harry says. Granted, he doesn’t have work himself until noon, but even that seems insurmountable when the other option — to lie in bed with Louis all day or visit another museum or another cafe with him is much more appealing.

Louis looks like he’s pondering something. After a beat, Harry asks, “What?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like a sugar daddy.”

Harry snorts into his wine glass. “Sorry?”

“I just remember what it was like when I was here years ago. I know you like your job, but for me, I hated working. All I wanted to do was write, which _is_ work. But it’s work I cared about.”

“It does feel that way sometimes,” Harry says, carefully, knowing already where this is going.

“Right, well, if you didn’t want to work at the school anymore, you wouldn’t have to. Even if you just wanted to work less. I just want you to know it’s an option, that’s all.” Louis shrugs, mostly peering into his wine. “And it’s not much different from, you know…”

“No, I don’t know,” Harry says, his breath held.

“It’s not any different from us being married or something,” Louis says, not quite looking at him. 

Harry has no idea what to say. Nonsensically, he wants to say ‘yes’ as if Louis has just proposed marriage. Knowing neither of them are ready for that, but wanting it anyway. Harry, at least, isn’t ready. Anyway, it isn’t relevant. Louis hasn’t actually proposed marriage.

“Emily worked, didn’t she?” Harry asks.

“She did some freelance finance stuff mostly,” Louis says. “But her family is pretty wealthy, so she didn’t really need to. This is different, though.”

“I know,” Harry says.

“I’m just saying, if you decide one day that you hate your job, or you just need time to finish your book, I’m here.”

“I really appreciate that,” Harry says. “And I know I can count on you. Ultimately, though, it’s your money, not mine. Because we’re not actually married, so—”

“Is that something you want?”

In shock, Harry laughs. “Louis.” He props himself up on his elbows. “I think I’m too drunk for this conversation.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Louis says, laughing. He looks off, towards the window for a moment, the wheels still visibly turning in his head. Powerful, primordial wheels. Like something da Vinci might’ve crafted. Harry loves when Louis is deep in thought. He loved watching him furtively in his Oxford office, mulling over a bullet point in his lesson plan or a paragraph in his upcoming work. This, of course, is much different. Whatever he’s thinking now is wholly concerned with their life together, Harry suspects, and he waits impatiently for the next thing to leave Louis’ mouth.

“It’s something I’ve thought about sober,” Louis says. “If that makes you feel better.”

“ _Marriage_?” Harry asks. “With me?”

“Everything with you.”

Harry feels his whole face on fire. There are enough miles of blood vessels in the human body to encircle the earth twofold. Every mile in Harry’s body is ablaze in that instant. It’s as he’s still trying to catch his breath that Louis says, “Ramsey asked if I wanted to be their kid’s godfather tonight.” He sets his wine glass down. “I said yes.”

Harry clears his throat. “That’s amazing. Are you happy?”

“I am, yeah. For a few reasons. It’s good to be back. It’s good to have them welcome me back so openly,” Louis says. “I also love kids. I’ve always… I’ve told you before that I wanted kids.”

“I remember.”

“And while Erin was showing you the sonogram pics, I heard when she asked you if you wanted kids of your own. And you said yes.”

Harry was a bit drunk by that point, in his defence. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been so loud if he’d been sober. But when Erin asked, he did say yes. A resounding yes. Because when he thinks about his future, he always imagines a husband and children. Not because he thinks he has to fulfill some domestic dream, but because like Louis, he loves children and he loves love and he loves having things of his own. A family of his very own. He wants that.

“I do,” Harry says.

“So, have you considered…” Louis draws a breath. “Do you see that happening with me?”

If Harry hesitates, it’s because he’s never admitted this to himself before. “Yes.”

Louis is visibly unfazed. He nods. “Me too.”

It all seems so absurd and yet so obvious. For two people who have never been in love with anyone else but each other. For two people who have broken each other to get here. Certainly, they’ll have to talk about this when they aren’t under the influence, but when they do, it’ll still be a fact that Louis is his family. Louis, in some cosmic way, has always been his family.

“I love you, Harry,” Louis says.

Harry smiles. “I know.”

“And my friends love you,” Louis says, resting his hand on Harry’s bare knee. “Ramsey is obsessed with you. And Ben, I think. A bit handsy, that one.”

“He was,” Harry says, chuckling. He feels himself relaxing again, and he reclines into his pillow. “Kind of embarrassing too with Jane watching.”

“I don’t think Jane minds watching. They like a threesome every now and then,” Louis says.

Harry looks at him wide-eyed. “Have you ever?”

“No.”

“Would you?”

“I think that’d be a bit awkward,” Louis says. “I’d only be paying attention to you.”

On that note, the way Louis looks at him is so intimate and so incomparable to the way anyone has looked at him before.

“I think it might’ve been the dancing that got her attention too, by the way,” Louis says. “How many tricks do you have up your sleeve?”

Harry grins. “Maybe she wanted a lesson.”

“I think they all did,” Louis says, wrapping his hand around Harry’s calf. He presses a kiss to the inside of Harry’s knee. “I loved having you there. Having you by my side, in general. That’s all I need.”

“We have to hang around your nosy friends more often if it means you’ll get like this.”

Their burst of laughter dissipates and softens into twin smiles. Louis’ hand glides up Harry’s thigh and then, scooting a bit closer, he runs his thumb up the underside of Harry’s cock, tenting his boxers, and Harry releases the breath he was holding. Louis presses his entire palm into Harry’s erection, palming him until he’s fully hard and his breathing thins out. His legs drop open a bit wider. He bares his neck a bit more. All ways of saying, _I’m yours for the taking and I want you to take me._

Louis shakes his head slightly, looking breathless himself. “You’re unbelievable,” he says. “So fucking beautiful.”

With a lick of his bottom lip, he peels Harry’s boxers off and then sinks between his legs, kissing him everywhere and then wetting his hole, prodding with his tongue. Harry reaches blindly to set his wine glass on his nightstand, just managing to do so, before shoving his hands into Louis’ hair. He keens and whimpers. “I love when you do this to me,” he says.

“I love doing this to you,” Louis says. He only lets up to get the lube, only stops fucking him with his tongue to return and fuck him with his fingers. His perfect fucking fingers. Harry wants them inside of him like this. And in his mouth. He wants them tangled in his hair. He wants Louis’ hands and every part of his body on his person any way and every way possible.

In the dim but mystical light of his bedroom, Louis’ eyes are like moonbeams themselves, and Harry is reminded of those circuitous roads in his rural childhood town. No streetlamps. Just the moon and the stars to light his way. He remembers once when Charlie killed the car’s headlights and the entire street was washed in moon-gilded darkness. He felt vulnerable. He felt human. He felt alive.

It’s the same now but without that edge of fear. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s him and Louis in the dark. Him and Louis always, forever. 

Louis pulls his fingers free and runs a lubed hand over his own cock. He tugs Harry down the bed and then, without much pause, he pushes into him. Harry groans so loudly. “Yes,” he says. And then again, “Yes,” as Louis begins to fuck him quickly and deeply and exactly as he’s wanted all day.

The first time they did this, Harry wanted to climb out of his hotel bed afterwards and write about it. As though he had synesthesia. Similar to how great sounds beget bold colors. There had to be some secondary way to process Louis’ touch. He’s sure one day he’ll figure it out.

They turn over and Harry plants his palms on Louis’ chest. He lets his eyes close and his head tilt back as he rocks his hips to and fro. Louis digs his fingers into Harry’s sweat-slicked thighs, the pressure increasing the closer he gets. They look at one another. Slowly, they smile, amused almost by what they can do to each other.

“Fuck,” Louis breathes. He grasps Harry’s hips tightly. “Harry.”

And then he’s come. Harry feels him come and he slows and slows until Louis holds him still and has to catch his breath. Harry looks at him, pleased because Louis is pleased, content because of the contentment on Louis’ face.

“Come here,” Louis says, urging Harry closer by the hips.

Harry knees his way up the bed and straddles Louis’ chest. He crumbles the instant Louis puts his mouth on his cock. He rests his hands against his bedroom wall for support and thrusts, shallow and slow until he comes in Louis’ mouth with a shudder.

Sinking onto the bed next to Louis, he’s thoroughly spent, his limbs akimbo and glowing with sweat. One leg across Louis’ leg, one arm hanging off the bed.

“I don’t want to rush you, by the way,” Louis says. “I don’t want it to feel like I am.”

With some effort, Harry turns so that he can face Louis. “It doesn’t at all,” he says.

He’s starting to sober up. They both are. He can tell.

“I’m not sure I'd want to raise kids in New York, just so you know,” Harry says. “I know you want to buy a place, and I’ll admit initially when you said so, I was happy. It felt secure. But when it comes to staying here forever, I do think about my mum and my sister and Ramona.”

“Buying a place is mostly about investing in our future,” Louis says. “If it’s not something you want, it doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you want?”

“Mostly to be where you are,” Louis says. “But you met the people tonight who have been more like family to me than anyone back in London. I’ve always been happier here. We don’t have to decide on anything anytime soon.”

“We’re staying for now, at least.”

“Yes, and if I’m not buying, I’ll have to rent a place, as soon as possible. Simone definitely hates me.”

Harry snickers. “Hate is too strong a word.”

  
  


Harry hovers just off screen, sitting perpendicular to Louis with one hand around his glass of wine and the other at his mouth as he chews his thumbnail. On Louis’ laptop, there’s a chime as the video call connects.

“Louis!” Ernest bellows, drawing out all the syllables. “What’s up? Are you in jail?”

“What are you talking about?” Louis’ brows crease. He turns and looks around at the apartment behind him. “Does it look like I’m in jail?”

“Not really. It doesn’t look like a hospital either. That was my next guess. So you’re not dying and you’re not in jail. What has propelled you to call me?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “It’s just been a while since we’ve talked.”

“Yeah, it has. Are you okay?”

“I’m doing alright, yeah. Are you?”

“I’m good. I’m actually at the house with Alexis. We’re moving into a new place tomorrow.”

“Nice… I just moved myself,” Louis says, glancing at Harry. “It’s another reason why I called. I’m living with someone now too. Someone…I love. And I want you two to meet. Hopefully in person one day, but I thought this would do for now.”

“Okay…If you got yourself a dog, Louis, I’m hanging up.”

Louis looks at him and they laugh. “No,” Louis says. He gives Harry a nod, and Harry repositions himself beside Louis and looks at the screen. He lifts his hand and waves.

Louis says, “Ernie. This is Harry. We’re together.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then very slowly, Ernest’s smile grows. He’s mastered the art of the painfully slow-building smile. All else aside, he noticeably isn’t surprised. “Right. Nice to meet you, Harry.”

Harry laughs, mostly in relief. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Does mum know?” Ernest asks Louis.

“Yeah.”

“And the others?”

“Just you and mum for now.”

“Well, I feel special,” Ernest says. He narrows his eyes at Harry. “Who’s tallest? Looks like Harry.”

“Oh, piss off,” Louis says, tiredly.

“Right, so he _is_ taller. Good on you, Harry. Where are you two living then?”

“New York,” Harry says, still laughing.

Ernest nods and starts tapping his fingers together, comically, as the wheels turn in his head. “Haven’t been to New York since last New Year’s. I’m overdue for a visit.”

“We’d love that,” Harry says.

Louis narrows his eyes. “I’ve just been outvoted.”

“Oh, you’d love it too. Don’t lie,” Ernest says. “We’ll make plans! I’ll bring Alexis.”

**_Months later..._ **

Alfred and Mosley don’t necessarily like each other, but tolerance will suffice.

Of the two cats, Mosley is the bonafide diva. She’s visibly perturbed by the presence of another cat, stealing any amount of her thunder. No matter how lazy and indifferent Alfred tends to be. It’s easy to forget he’s there at all until he comes sauntering out of some crevice for nourishment, and at such times, Mosley will stop sudden and look at him. Bewildered and betrayed.

(In May, they get back from their stay in Florence and London and Harry is relieved to find Mosley hasn’t committed any crimes, although Simone or the lady down the hall who came by to feed both cats most likely would have mentioned it.)

It’s a dilemma, but it’s also the only hitch on his road to cohabitation with Louis. There are furniture pieces to purchase and assemble and paintings to hang, but their two-bedroom is as much a home as any past dwelling has been. (More so, in some cases.) It’s warm in every possible way. Heated by an abundance of sunlight, brightened by rich colors on the walls. They have the kind of home he’s always eager to return to. His favorite place on earth, without competition.

Sunday mornings when they write in their shared office, sipping quietly on cups of coffee and only ever bothering each other for an opinion when necessary, are his favourite. Weeknights when they fall asleep on opposite ends of the couch with the telly still going are his favorite. Saturday brunches with Ramsey and Erin and friends from NYU, the two of them at opposite ends of the table, sharing frequent private smiles. Those are his favorite too.

On the days Louis isn’t at the university, Harry commutes home alone, reading a novel or playing a game on his phone, and every now and then, his mind will wander to Louis huddled in some part of the apartment, writing or drafting a lesson plan or starting dinner, and the thought of joining him is enough to endure the rush-hour huddle or the long lines at the grocery store.

Some days, Louis waits for him in Washington Square Park. He’s always sitting on or near the southeastern-most bench, usually reading or watching people.

Other days, Harry sits in on Louis’ last class and his newest course regarding the six odes of John Keats.

Louis works part-time at NYU. His roster is kept small, mostly by choice. Next year, Dr. Chatterji insists they can carve out a full-fledged course listing, but Louis isn’t sure yet if he wants that.

Nonetheless, Harry is certain that Louis could return to the classroom full-time anytime he wanted. Listening to him and watching him, it’s clear his brilliance hasn’t dwindled at all, although Harry never expected it too.

Harry packs up his bag and waits in the back as the classroom clears out. Two students say ‘hello’ to him and he can’t remember if he taught them during his fellowship or if, more embarrassingly, they simply know who he is in relation to Louis.

They were discreet, at first. But after leaving together often enough or arriving at staff functions together, discretion started to seem a bit silly.

“Very good class, Professor,” Harry says, perching on the corner of the desk.

“Thanks,” Louis says, smiling as he slides his laptop into its case. He leans in, greeting Harry with a kiss. “Were you taking notes back there?”

“I might’ve been,” Harry says. “Also, I feel like I’m starting to distract your students.”

“You’re a distracting person.”

Harry’s brows arch. “Am I distracting you?”

“I’m used to it,” Louis says, as they leave the lecture hall and start down the stairs. “Good day today?”

“Not bad,” Harry says. They exit the building and Harry loops arms with Louis. “Better now, though. You?”

They start towards Washington Square Park and the train that will take them home, and Louis says, “Better now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the most fluffy thing I've ever written, but it's up there lol... Harry in this story (and in general) is a romantic, okay? They both are! It can't be helped.
> 
> I'm going to do one more of these and then i'll decide whether to keep going. i'm not sure what i'd write about beyond just...more fluff lmao. but regardless i'm really excited about the next chp and it's going to take some time to plan and write and post. but hopefully it'll be worth the wait!! thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> masterpost [1](https://aliensingucci.tumblr.com/post/618784076065849344/come-as-you-are-by-stylinsoncity-i-think-it-could) [2](https://crosstheuniverse.tumblr.com/post/618843604914421760/come-as-you-are-by-aliensingucci-also-known-as) [3](https://larryfanfiction.com/post/619204466339610624/come-as-you-are-by-stylinsoncity-aliensingucci) | [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/765XC0VtBmJHkBvhaVxYfI?si=eh0PU5cjTuiH26UYj7GrfQ) *adding new songs!!


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